Wurster, William Wilson

Wurster, William Wilson, 1895–1973, American architect, b. Stockton, Calif. Wurster was a major designer of town and country dwellings in the roomy and comfortable West Coast aesthetic termed “Bay Region style.” His buildings were carefully integrated with the surrounding environment. Wurster taught at Harvard and was dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1944–50) and dean of the Univ. of California Architecture School at Berkeley (1950–59). His major works include the Golden Gateway Redevelopment Project and Ghirardelli Square, both in San Francisco, Cowell College of the Univ. of California at Santa Cruz, and a number of office buildings.

See M. Treib, ed., An Everyday Modernism: The Houses of William Wurster (1995).

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